L'Esprit D'Escalier
by TheSoulOfAStrawberry
Summary: A lack of understanding leads to a misunderstanding, which in turn leads to two confused men dealing with something they should have sorted out earlier, rather than on John's wedding day.


"Asexual" was such a neat term for it. A, for some reason, largely obsolete word; yet altogether brilliant in its encapsulation of something as complex as years of worry and personal conflict, and the maelstrom of culture versus ones innermost and primal sentiments... or lack thereof.

Of course, words can be gifts. Like "I love you", being a binding of two souls, "I do"; the finalisation and cementing of this promise, and "Goodbye", a release of years and years of memories to the crisp dusk breeze outside of those sturdy oaken doors.

Had someone have given Sherlock the word "asexual" as a gift, it would have been one wrapped in a box small enough to fit snugly in the palm of a small hand- one of a new-born baby, perhaps- and would be finished with plain brown paper, a pure, white ribbon criss-crossing the top of the box. And Sherlock, after having tossed it, palm into palm, getting a feel for its weight, its size, and the way it rattled slightly, as if something, somewhere, didn't quite fit, would gently ease off the ribbon, letting it drop from the tip of his trembling finger. He'd then pause. For Sherlock Holmes, there was always time for a pause, for reflection, for thought, for deduction. He'd ask himself who would have gotten him such a mysterious present, looking side to side, up and down, as if the world could give him anymore answers than the one's he'd already wrenched from its inexorably steady grip.

Maybe it was Mycroft.

And yet, maybe it wasn't. So, assiduously, as he'd started, he would ease his little finger underneath the sellotape: just one tiny piece, before the wrapping fell apart, and, like a rose in sudden bloom... there it was.

The explanation, the reason, the question, the answer. One simple word, just like "love" or "friend", but one that explained all those strange feelings constantly churning away in the back of his oh-so-brilliant mind.

"Asexual".

Sherlock's problem being, that nobody, including himself, had ever worked it out; never explained to him that he wasn't strange for finding naked bodies bizarre- and not in a good way; or that sex and love were, as a matter of science, completely different things.

He could have love, without the sex. He could leave loneliness in those stormy, heroin-fogged nights in his old flat, and fall in love with whomever he wanted to.

Sherlock's problem, again, being that no one, not even Mycroft, had laid this out for him to understand. And, perhaps, it would have meant things didn't end up the way they did. That it didn't take Sherlock culminating a talent for reading every minute detail about a person to find the intricacies of the universe that he was subconsciously searching desperately for; or confusing love and sex, sex and love, for decades, before, finally, something clicked.

By which time it was too late.

The word "asexual" may not have meant anything to Sherlock Holmes. It didn't mean much to John Watson either. Indeed, the idea didn't flash between them at all, in that suddenly tiny kitchen. Nothing flashed between them except a glance, and a faked grin from the man holding the contaminated cup of tea.

But something, in that moment when John looked up at him, smiling his smile of social convention with his sad green eyes and comfortingly familiar crows' feet, struck Sherlock. Even then, he didn't know it was love. At least, it wasn't sex: he knew that.

For Sherlock, in that moment, love: that elusive, logically unexplored sentiment, presented itself to the detective as loss.

Naturally, it was deducible. Sherlock had abandoned John, John had looked for comfort, and Mary had been there for John. Love, particularly for "bachelor John Watson", was always the most likely outcome. And what made it all the more worse, was how Sherlock was crystal clear on the fact that Mary really was, as John had said countless times, the best thing that had ever happened to him. How could he top that? How could he, the man who had faked his own death, ever expect to deserve someone like John?

It took half-a-day of Sherlock pacing the flat after John's request that he be his best man to link the feeling of loss with John, and then again, to the logical step of Sherlock, in fact, finding that the first person to demonstrate, unknowingly, what love was, was John.

It took a lot longer than that for Sherlock to admit this to himself, explicitly, at which point it was too late to hide it from John, and too late to show John exactly what the difference between love, loss and sex was.

"So this is the famous speech, then?" John grinned, and Sherlock scowled, in what he perceived to be a menacing fashion, at the sight of his own well-crumpled wedding prompt card in John's hand.

"You're not supposed to look at it, John!" His voice came out a growl. Not that John was listening. Of course not: he was too busy reading.

"John is the beast... Beast?" Sherlock straightened his tie, "No, wait. I think it's your handwriting," he squinted at the page, "How do you expect to be able to use this, Sherlock?"

"Look at the title," he replied irritably, "Prompt. _Prompt_, John. Not the whole speech, typed out in Times New Roman so you can read it twenty-three minutes before the church service starts."

"Yeah, but... Lestrade said you were having a hard time with this," John chuckled, and Sherlock masked the tugging in his stomach at noticing the shaving nick on the left-side of John's neck with another petulant grimace.

"How much is this worth, d'you think, then?" John was making a joke, and while Sherlock should have been in the mood to please his best friend, he wasn't. He'd rather have that awful stag-night hangover a thousand times over than have John chuckling as he walked out of Baker Street for what seemed, and could indeed be, the last time.

"Scrawly sentimentality and wedding gush, by the one and only Sherlock Holm- Sh... Sherlock? Are you alright?" John asked, stepping closer, noticing the odd expression skewing his best friend's face.

"Alright? Yes, of course, what a stupid question," Sherlock snapped, a little too quickly, a little too obviously. John's next question, despite the man's near constant self-doubt, was practically rhetorical.

"Are you sure?" John mumbled, and once again, he moved forward, intensely close to Sherlock. He could smell his expensive new cologne, and toothpaste, and under that...

Sherlock smirked suddenly at the thought of ex-army doctor John Watson cursing at the toilet as he surrendered to the standard of pre-wedding jitters.

"Jesus, Sherlock. I swear, if you don't tell me now, you'll regret it."

"Will I?" Sherlock replied, teeth gritted as he held back a bitter laugh at John's invariable ability to be both perspicacious and incredibly dense simultaneously. Something, then, between them changed, and John's brows knitted themselves together in frustration.

"You fucking will. Sherlock Holmes, this is my wedding day: I don't need any more drama from you... I know you ha-... Just... Just spit it out, Sherlock, or I'll... I'll..."

"You'll what, exactly?"

Now there was a challenge. The wrong type of challenge in a conversation that had very much taken a wrong turn.

Sherlock didn't want to cause trouble, and, if he were honest with himself in that single moment, the last thing he wanted to do was confess anything to a man who looked as brittle as a sheet of glass. However, as things were, and as much as he'd later try to deny it to himself, he was just as a slave to his rawest emotions as the rest of the world, not to mention significantly more stubborn.

"Do you know what... I'm not answering that," John pointed an accusing into Sherlock's face, as a way of squaring up to the taller man. He was very close. Sherlock wanted to move his hand to touch John's, just because he thought it might help, but it also might cause John's fist to fly into his face, so he restrained himself.

"I don't live here anymore, Sherlock. And I'm not your partner anymore either. I don't need to answer to yo... For..." he sniffed, and inhaled, the tension displacing from his shoulders. "I don't want to be angry with you, Sherlock. Just... Tell me you're alright?"

Sherlock stared down at him. Staring, because there were tears in the very corners of his eyes, and he deduced that staying as still as humanly possible would keep them there, and stop John seeing how that little waver in John's voice when he said his name amplified this newly discovered love, the strange, painful, lost love. He was also staring, because, once again, he was entirely at a loss of words.

John wasn't angry, true to his word. Sherlock didn't know it, but John felt lost too, looking up into those blank, calculating eyes in their sad blue, and wondering if he was really doing the right thing. Maybe it wasn't possible to have them both: to have Sherlock and Mary. Was he selfish for wanting that? They got on, it seemed, and Mary had never tried to replace Sherlock.

After a few moments, John stepped back, closing his eyes and sighing, a way of admitting defeat and keeping his pride and wits about him in the process.

What he didn't expect, however, was Sherlock. That is, he knew he was there, in front of him, but he'd never expected for Sherlock to seize the moment in which John was off-guard, in which his eyes were closed, in which he broke the intense gaze with the detective; bending down slightly, and quickly, if not clumsily (not quite how it happened on television) giving John a fleeting kiss, leaving his cheek wet with salty tears from where Sherlock had thought it etiquette to close his eyes when kissing.

Perhaps, if someone had explained to Sherlock what asexuality was, he would have been clearer about his feelings, knowing that attraction could be something other than sexual. Almost platonic, if he liked. And, maybe, had he had been more clued up about his own attraction to John sooner, then he might not have left the man himself standing in Baker Street on his wedding day, full of unsaid things. Alone, confused, and wanting, with a finger touched to his lips as his head whirled with the ephemeral, already almost completely forgotten moment.

He'd never known.

**I had this idea in that small moment before you fall asleep- or at least, the last bit of the night you generally remember. And then I woke back up at wrote it. The episode keeps making me sadder and sadder, because I discussed it with some people and they have all this quite frankly depressing theories. And, what, I just wanted to put an asexual spin on the whole thing. People often misunderstand, think the asexuality doesn't allow for normal relationships. I think it does, but then, I can hardly be sure.**

**The moment I liked best in the episode was that mentioned at the start of this: where John asks Sherlock to be his best man, and Sherlock just stares. It's wonderful acting, the way you can pick about a dozen different emotions out of his facial expression: and is a heart-breaking example of what the French call _l'esprit d'escalier._ It can mean "staircase wit", being the act of thinking of the perfect retort too late, but is also a term for things left unsaid.**


End file.
